Detection of virgin olive oil adulteration using low field unilateral NMR

Sensors (Basel). 2014 Jan 24;14(2):2028-35. doi: 10.3390/s140202028.

Abstract

The detection of adulteration in edible oils is a concern in the food industry, especially for the higher priced virgin olive oils. This article presents a low field unilateral nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) method for the detection of the adulteration of virgin olive oil that can be performed through sealed bottles providing a non-destructive screening technique. Adulterations of an extra virgin olive oil with different percentages of sunflower oil and red palm oil were measured with a commercial unilateral instrument, the profile NMR-Mouse. The NMR signal was processed using a 2-dimensional Inverse Laplace transformation to analyze the transverse relaxation and self-diffusion behaviors of different oils. The obtained results demonstrated the feasibility of detecting adulterations of olive oil with percentages of at least 10% of sunflower and red palm oils.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Diffusion
  • Food Analysis / methods*
  • Magnetic Fields
  • Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy*
  • Olive Oil
  • Palm Oil
  • Plant Oils / analysis*
  • Sunflower Oil

Substances

  • Olive Oil
  • Plant Oils
  • Sunflower Oil
  • Palm Oil